How? ​

• Pupil surveys: anonymously survey students’ about their current smartphone usage, level of parental supervision, exposure to upsetting or inappropriate content via their smartphones and experiences of online bullying, to help build consensus about the scale and urgency of the problem within your school community. Research shows a significant disconnect between what parents think their children are experiencing through their smartphones and reality. This data helps disabuse parents of any illusion that their children are not being exposed to harmful content or using their smartphones too much (which is the case for the majority of children.)
  
  
• Parent surveys: this is helpful for establishing how many parents are supportive of tighter restrictions (it is always the majority!), how many parents felt pressured to buy a smartphone for their child earlier than they would have liked and how many wish they had waited longer before giving their child a smartphone (also generally the majority!).
  
  
• Parent education: typically only a small minority of parents and carers will turn up to information sessions but those individuals can be important champions and the act of hosting a dedicated event flags smartphones as an urgent issue. It is powerful to be able to reinforce data from national surveys with the findings of your own parent and student surveys.  A Q&A session at the end of the event gives parents the opportunity to share their feelings and concerns.
  
  
• Student education: focusing on algorithmic literacy, how addictive-by-design technology works and the financial drivers behind the attention economy encourages students to reevaluate their relationship with their smartphones. Who’s benefiting from the hours they spend online…them or the owners of the tech companies?
   
• Consult with parents…on how, not if, smartphones should be removed from the school day. 

How? 

A complete ban of smartphones and personal internet-enabled devices from the school site (option A in the current government guidance) with a no-see, no-hear policy for brick phones, is the easiest policy for schools to police and dissuades parents from buying their children a device in the first place. It’s also the cheapest to implement. 

• Water-tight logistics is critical: spend time identifying every point of the school day where smartphones are used and address these uses with alternative means e.g. procuring digital cameras/ ipads, buying physical homework diaries, printing off timetables. 

• Enforcement: Headteachers consistently say that a significant confiscation period (3-6 weeks is typical) is critical for achieving compliance because it acts as a genuine deterrent. This may be unpopular with some parents who don’t want the inconvenience of their child not having a smartphone at home (especially as the child goes through a period of dopamine withdrawal), though many headteachers say parents tell them “keep the damn thing as long as you’d like!”

• SLTs should be in charge of confiscations to avoid putting teachers in a conflict position.
• Ensure all staff are fully briefed on the new policy, including front-desk staff who are the interface with parents. 

Prepare front-desk staff and duty teachers for a couple of week’s extra workload fielding calls from parents regarding logistics as families adjust to not being able to message their children through the school day. 

How? 

The “education” phase in step 1 will have prepared the ground for the new policy so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to the school community.

Make sure communication goes out to parents at the same time students are informed at school to prevent a messaging vacuum developing. 

Be prepared for vocal backlash from a small minority and silent support from a relieved majority! 

Follow-up surveys, one term into the new policy, to capture the positive impact on the students’ wellbeing and teachers’ experiences is a useful way to reassure parents that this is the best policy for their children and your teachers.